Donncha O’Callaghan: I’d love if Peter Stringer returned to Munster

Donncha O’Callaghan would love it if Peter Stringer rejoined Munster.

The 98 times capped Ireland scrum-half leaves Bath in May and the 37-year-old admitted he is relishing “the next chapter of my rugby career elsewhere”.

And his old provincial and national colleague would love if that ‘elsewhere’ was back where it all began.

O’Callaghan said: “If it was up to me, I’d give him a 10 year deal. He’s in incredible shape. You’ve got to judge a guy on how he’s playing. I bet if you go through the scores at Bath, Peter Stringer is probably the highest in fitness and pound for pound, probably the strongest and that’s what he should be judged on and not his age.

“Peter is as fit as a flea and will drive on. He’s the kind of guy you’d love to have around. He’s a standard setter. He’s someone I keep in touch with, how he trains, how he looks after himself, you’d always bounce things off him. You just hear what Mike Ford (former Ireland defence coach and currently head coach at Bath) says about him when he went into that culture, how he brought guys on.

“When Strings is around you, you want to play better. A three-year deal would be a good signing for someone. There’s no fear of Strings, there’s plenty of rugby left in him.”

O’Callaghan, who turns 36 next month, is another who falls into the veteran category. So how does it feel to be surrounded by team mates who can be 15 or 16 years his junior?

“They make for great energy and craic around the place,” he smiles. “There is no fear in that regard. But there are things you would have been lucky to see, what John Langford, Mick Galwey, Peter Clohessy left to us. And there is an onus on us to feed it back to these guys. That is the way we do things, the way we operate, the way we conduct ourselves. We have a great group and that’s that what makes being out of Europe so disappointing.

“You can see how they want their time in Munster to be special. They look at the likes of Quinny and Rog as their heroes. It’s motivating to be around them because they’re hungry”.

One man who won’t be part of the group any more is hooker Damien Varlery who this week was forced to retire because of a foot injury.

“You know what it means to himself, to his brother, to his dad, seeing him tog out for Munster and how hard he had to make it. He went through the club system, wasn’t picked up, went to Wasps and made it there and came back. In the days of academies and systems, it’s great to see fellas who go the other way and that was him all out. With that foot, no one would have togged out against Leinster (at the Aviva Stadium in what turned out to be Varley’s game last October). The last thing I remember him doing was actually robbing a ball, granted, he got sin binned, but he will be sadly missed around the place.”

O’Callaghan and his teammates now turn their attentions to Saturday‘s clash with the Scarlets and the hope of further cementing their place in the top four of the Guinness Pro12 in the build-up to the visit of leaders Glasgow to Musgrave Park a week later. “Scarlets are the Welsh team I most respect. They always put in massive performances, they go beyond themselves.”